wards the Creator of the universe, who is the "Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation." And, therefore, we need not wonder, that "holy men of old," whose minds were overpowered with this sacred emotion, broke out into language which would be deemed extravagant, by the frigid moralists of the present age. Under a sense of the unbounded love and goodness of God, the Psalmist felt his heart elated, and formed these pious resolutions: “Seven times a day will I praise thee, O Lord! At midnight will I rise to give thanks to thee, because of thy righteous precepts, I will rejoice in the way of thy precepts, as much as in all riches. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. O, how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. I will speak of thy testimonies before kings, and will not be ashamed of thy commandments. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire, besides thee. As the hart panteth after the brooks of water, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" Under similar emotions, the Apostle Paul exclaims, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

SECTION V.

On the Mercy and Patience of God.

ANOTHER feature in the divine character, which is peculiarly calculated to excite admiration, affection, and gratitude, is the Mercy and Patience of God.

Mercy has its sourse in the Divine Goodness, and may be considered as a particular modification of the Benevolence of the Deity. Goodness is the genus, Mercy the species. The Goodness of God extends to all the creatures he has formed, of whatever description or character,-to the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, the microscopic animalcula, and the most wicked class of human beings, as well as to angels, archangels, and other superior intelligences. Mercy can have a reference only to those who have sinned against their Maker, and rendered themselves unworthy of his favours. It consists in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have forfeited every claim to them, and have rendered themselves obnoxious to

punishment. It cannot be exercised toward "the angels who have kept their first estate," or towards any other class of holv intelligences, because they do not stand in need of its exercise. -The Patience or Forbearance of God, is that attribute of his nature which consists in his bearing long with sinners, and refraining from inflicting deserved punishment, notwithstanding their impenitence, and long-continued provocations.

These attributes are seldom displayed, in our world, by one man, or class of men, towards another. Instead of clemency, mercy, and forbearance, we find in the character of mankind, as delineated in the page of history, the principle of revenge operating more powerfully than almost any other disposition; and, therefore, when any striking instance of mercy and long suffering is exhibited in human conduct, we are disposed to wonder at it, and to admire it as an extraordinary moral phenomenon. When we behold a personage who is possessed of every degree of moral and physical power for crushing his enemies-yet remaining calm and tranquil, and forbearing to execute deserved punishment, notwithstanding repeated insults and injuries, we are led to admire such qualities, as indicating a certain degree of greatness and benevolence of mind. On this principle, we admire the forbearance of David, the anointed king of Israel, towards Saul, his bitterest enemy, when he had an opportunity of slaying him at the cave of En-gedi; and afterwards, when he was sleeping in a trench at Hachila;and at the clemency which he exercised towards Shimei, who had cursed and insulted him, and treated him most reproachfully. On the same principle, we admire the conduct of Sir Walter Raleigh, a man of known courage and honour, towards a certain rash, hot-headed youth. Being very injuriously treated by this impertinent mortal, who next proceeded to challenge him, and, on his refusal, spit on him, and that too in public; the knight, taking out his handkerchief, with great calmness, made him only this reply: "Young man, if I could as easily wipe your blood from my conscience, as I can this injury from my face, I would this moment take away your life." In order to exhibit the Mercy and Long-suffering of the Deity in their true light, let us consider, for a moment, some of the leading features in the conduct and the character of mankind. Whether we go back to the remote ages of antiquity, or review the present moral state of the inhabitants of our globe, we shall find the following, among many other similar traits, in the character of the great mass of this world's population: An utter forgetfulness of God, and the prevalence of abominable idolatries. Though an invisible and Omnipo

tent energy may be clearly perceived in that majestic ma chinery by which the vault of heaven appears to be whirled round our globe from day to day; and though every returning season proclaims the exuberant Goodness of that Being who arranged our terrestrial habitation,-yet, of the great majority of human beings that have hitherto existed, or now exist, it may with truth be said, that "God is not in all their thoughts, and the fear of God is not before their eyes." And how grovelling have been the conceptions of those who have professed to offer their adorations to a superior Intelligence! They have changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man, and have invested with the attributes of Divinity, a block of marble, the stock of a tree, a stupid ox, and a crawling reptile; to which they have paid that worship and homage which were due to the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth.-Blasphemy and Impiety is another characteristic of the majority of our species. How many have there been of our wretched race in all ages, and how many are there in the present age, who "set their mouths against the heavens in their blasphemous talk," and "dare defy the Omnipotent to arms!" They say to God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways: What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?" While his hand is making their pulse to beat, and their lungs to play, and while he is distributing to them corn, and wine, and fruits, in rich abundance, they are blaspheming his venerable Majesty, and prostituting these very blessings for the purpose of pouring dishonour on his name.

The diabolical passions which men have displayed towards one another, is another striking trait in their character. War has been their employment and their delight in every age. Thousands of rational beings of the same species have set themselves in array against thousands, and have levelled at each other spears, and arrows, and darts, and musquetry, and cannon, and every other instrument of destruction, till legs, and arms, and skulls, and brains, were mingled with the dust --till the earth was drenched with human gore--till cities, and towns, and villages, were tumbled into ruins, or given up as a prey to the devouring flames-and till the bounties of Providence, which God had provided for man and beast, were destroyed, and trampled down as the mire of the streets. And, what adds to the enormity of such dreadful passions, they have often had the effrontery to implore the assistance of the God of mercy in this work of horror and destruction. When,

to all these abominable dispositions and practices, we add, the numerous other acts of atrocity, that are daily committed in every quarter of the world, the oppression and injustice which the poor, the widow, and the fatherless have suffered from the overwhelming hand of Power; the persecutions which Tyranny has inflicted on the select few, who have raised their voices against such abominations; the falsehood, and treachery, and perjury, which are rampant in every land; the lewd and unnatural crimes that are daily committed; the thefts, and murders, and assassinations, that are incessantly perpetrating in some one region of the world or another; the haughty pride and arrogance which so many of the puny sons of men assume; the murmurings and complainings at the dispensations of Providence, and the base ingratitude with which the majority of mankind receive the bounties of Heaven;--and when we consider, for how many thousands of years these abominable dispositions have been displayed, we have reason to wonder that condign punishment is not speedily executed, and that the Almighty does not interpose his Omnipotence, to shatter this globe to atoms, and to bury its inhabitants in the gulf of everlasting oblivion.

Yet, notwithstanding these depraved and ungrateful dispositions; notwithstanding that this spacious world, which was erected for a temple to the Deity, has been turned into a temple of idols, its seas and rivers stained, and its fields drenched with the blood of millions of human beings, and its cities transformed into a sink of moral pollution; in spite of all these innumerable and aggravated provocations, the God of heaven still exercises his Mercy, Long-suffering and Forbearance. He impels the earth in its annual and diurnal course, to bring about the interchanges of day and night, and the vicissitudes of the seasons; he makes his sun to arise on the world, to cheer the nations with his light and heat; he sends his rains, to refresh the fields, both of "the just, and of the unjust;" he causes the trees, the herbs, and the flowers, to bud and blossom every returning spring; he ripens the fields in harvest; he crowns the year with his bounty, and encircles the little hills with rejoicing. Instead of "sending forth his mighty winds," in incessant storms and hurricanes, to tear up whole forests by their roots, and to lay waste the productions of the soil, he fans the groves and the lawns with gentle breezes, and odoriferous gales. Instead of opening the cataracts of heaven, and dashing down overwhelming torrents, to deluge the plains, and frustrate the hopes of man, he refreshes the parched ground with gentle showers, as if they proceeded

from a watering-pot. Instead of confining our sensitive enjoyments to bread and water, as if we were the tenants of a jail, he has strewed our gardens and fields with every variety of luxuriant delicacies, to gratify every appetite. Instead of directing the lightnings to set on fire the mountains, and to level our cities to the ground, and the thunders to roll incessantly around us, he commands this terrific meteor to visit us only at distant intervals, and in its gentler operations, just to remind us what tremendous instruments of destruction he is capable of wielding, and that we ought to "be still and know that He is God," and that "he has punished us less than our iniquities deserve." O that man would praise the Lord for his Mercy, and for his Long-suffering towards the children of men!

This character of God is peculiar to himself, and cannot be supposed to belong, unless in a very inferior degree, to any created intelligence. Were the meekest man that ever appeared on the theatre of our world-or were even one of the highest intelligences in heaven to be invested with a portion of the attribute of omniscience; could he penetrate, at one glance, over all that hemisphere of our globe on which the sun shines, and, at the next glance, survey the other hemisphere which is enveloped in darkness; could his eye pierce into the secret chambers of every habitation of human beings, in every city, and town, and village, and especially into those haunts where crimes are veiled by the shades of night from every human eye; could he behold at one glance all the abominations that are hourly perpetrating in every region of the world-the Pagan worshippers in Thibet and Hindostan, performing their cruel and execrable rites-the wheels of Juggernaut crushing to death its wretched devotees-the human victims which are tortured and sacrificed, to gratify the ferocity of some barbarous chief-the savage hordes of New Zealand, feasting on the flesh of their fellow-men, whom they have cruelly butchered, and drinking their blood out of human skulls-the Indians of America, tearing with pincers the flesh of their prisoners, and enjoying a diabolical pleasure in beholding their tormentsthe haughty Inquisitors of Spain insulting their devoted victims, in the name of the merciful Saviour, and preparing tortures, and stakes, and flames for their destruction-the assassin plunging his dagger into his neighbour's bosom-the midnight robber entering into the abode of honest industry, strangling its inmates, and carrying off their treasures-the kidnapper tearing the poor African from his wife and children, and native land-the unfeeling planter and overseer lashing his degraded slaves-tyrants and persecutors dragging "the ex